Lightener chuckled and turned to Mr. Foote. "I don't suppose you appreciate the humor of that, Foote, the way I do. He's coming to you for an unbiased explanation of why your employees—feel that way…. Young fellow," he turned to Bonbright again—"I could come closer to doing it than your father—because I was one of them once. I used to come home with grease on my hands and a smudge on my nose, smelling of sweat." Mrs. Foote repressed a shudder and lowered her eyes. "But I couldn't be fair about it. Your father has no more chance of explaining the thing to you—than my wife has of explaining the theory of an internal-combustion engine…. We employers can't do it. We're on the other side. We can't see anything but our own side of it."
"Come now, Lightener, I'm fair-minded. I've even given some study to the motives of men."
"And you're writing a book." He shrugged his shoulders. "The sort of philosophical reflections that go in books aren't the sort to answer when you're up against the real thing in social unrest…. In your whole business life you've never really come into contact with your men. Now be honest, have you?"
"I've always delegated that sort of thing to subordinates," said Mr.
Foote, stiffly.
"Which," retorted Mr. Lightener, "is one of the reasons for the unrest…. That's it. We don't understand what they're up against, nor what we do to aggravate them."
"It's the inevitable warfare between capital and labor," said Mr. Foote. "Jealousy is at the root of it; unsound theories, like this of socialism, and too much freedom of speech make it all but unbearable."
"Dulac said they must organize to be in condition to fight us."
"Organize," said Mr. Foote, contemptuously. "I'll have no unions in my shop. There never have been unions and there never shall be. I'll put a sudden stop to that…. Pretty idea, when the men I pay wages to, the men I feed and clothe, can dictate to me how I shall conduct my affairs."
"Yes," said Lightener, "we automobile fellows are non-union, but how long we can maintain it I don't know. They have their eyes on us and they're mighty hungry."
"To-morrow morning," said Mr. Foote, "notices will appear in every department stating that any man who affiliates with a labor union will be summarily dismissed."